Veintiseis
by wisteria
Summary: Anger, loneliness, and December 26th.


DISCLAIMER: The characters herein are the property of Mutant Enemy and all related entities. The situations into which I have placed them are of my own creation.  
  
CATEGORIES: Buffy and Spike, post-Christmas  
  
RATING: PG-13 for vague allusions to adult subject matter  
  
ARCHIVAL: My site only. Please feel free to link to it at http://www.alanna.net/fanfic/veintiseis.html  
  
TIMELINE: post-"Wrecked"  
  
FEEDBACK: Treasured and pampered -- wisteria@smyrnacable.net  
  
SUMMARY: Anger, loneliness, and December 26th.  
  
  
  
Veintiseis  
  
by wisteria  
  
+++++  
  
  
  
She rinses dishes and places them, dried, back in the cabinet. Mom had a set decorated with candy canes and wreaths. They remain in the china cabinet.  
  
All the Summers household managed this year was a wreath on the door.  
  
Dawn had wanted to decorate, but Christmas decor didn't seem right with just the three of them in the house, one Jewish, one recuperating, and the third not sure she even believed in Christmas anymore.  
  
Buffy took the wreath from the closet on the twenty-first and hung it on the front door. She supposes she should take it down now.  
  
Christmas slid by like oil on glass. The three of them barely noticed.  
  
+++++  
  
a finger traces a cheekbone then falls to the floor  
  
--what would it take for you to hate me?  
  
brow furrows  
  
eyes glint silver-blue  
  
impossible  
  
a half-smile, a hint of disbelief  
  
--and you? What would it take for you to hate me?  
  
--I already do  
  
older finger traces her collarbone  
  
--of course. right.  
  
+++++  
  
He paces the damp floor of the crypt, his boots echoing in the empty space. He doesn't know why he waits for her to come. He has little to offer her, not that she'd take it.  
  
When he'd handed Dawn off to the E.R. nurse, the woman had given him a candy cane. Spike had shoved it in his coat pocket. Sweets weren't for him.  
  
Despite hospital protocol, they had let him in with Dawn when they took x- rays and set her arm. She'd had her own candy cane, and she bit down, hard, on it as the doctor pulled the bone back into place. If Spike had been human, Dawn's fierce grip would have broken his carpal bones. But he wasn't human, and the only crack was the snap of the candy as Dawn bit clean through it. She refused to cry.  
  
Then Buffy had arrived and he knew he was no longer wanted. "Thanks," she'd said, then she turned her back on him.  
  
Those were the last words they had exchanged, seventeen days past.  
  
He stares at the bit of tinsel he nicked from a tree that no longer wanted it tonight, the day after Christmas. It is metallic, cold silver. It reminds him of her eyes.  
  
He wonders how they celebrated Christmas, but in this new stalemate of theirs, he can't ask her.  
  
+++++  
  
he envies her  
  
the way she sleeps like the dead  
  
like him, if he were wholly dead instead of only halfway there  
  
an old hand rubs her back  
  
tracing the track-marks of his old nails  
  
blood-red  
  
just a taste, he tells himself  
  
her gingerbread and sugarplum blood on his finger  
  
sex makes her sweet, but only when she's asleep  
  
+++++  
  
Once the dishes are put away, she stands stock-still, waiting for something to happen. It never does.  
  
Dawn's upstairs, making more CDs. Dad's gift was a CD burner and DSL for her computer, pre-paid for a year. When Buffy called with the obligatory thank-you's and to ask if both could be exchanged for much-needed cash, all she got was his secretary telling her that Dad and his girlfriend were out of town and that she'd mailed the child support check that morning.  
  
Everyone got CDs for Christmas, since they were cheap to make. Buffy tried not to feel foolish as she opened their more expensive gifts, even though none of them had much money to spend. It's the thought that counts, right?  
  
Christmas morning was a dreary affair, with Willow coming down just long enough to eat dinner then retreating back upstairs when Tara stopped by with presents and frosted cookies. Anya and Xander came for dinner, but they didn't stay for dessert and they spent most of the meal bickering about Anya's decision to keep the shop open today for the big after- Christmas sale instead of driving up the coast like Xander wanted. "We only get a couple of days off, An," he'd whined, and Buffy had tried not to feel jealous. She wishes she had a career, complete with sick days and an income.  
  
Slayers don't get sick days, unless you're recuperating from massive vamp- induced injury.  
  
She walks over to the refrigerator and stares at the leftovers, or lack thereof. Christmas dinner would have been pizza, except for the fancy ham one of Mom's old clients had given them. Buffy had accepted it with a smile, inwardly cringing at the notion that it all just felt like charity.  
  
A draft makes her shiver, and she burrows her hands down in the sweater- coat that Dawn gave her, bought with Grandma Summers' Christmas money. She should go out and patrol, but Willow's not home yet to watch Dawn. And hell, even if Willow were home, Buffy's not entirely sure she wants to leave her sister with her best friend these days. Willow seems better now, but then they all thought Buffy was just fine until the song spell.  
  
So she shuffles out of the kitchen to stand by the front window, staring out at the December 26th darkness.  
  
She feels hollow again.  
  
She felt good once, just nineteen days ago.  
  
No, can't happen again.  
  
She looks out the window and tries to think of things that might make her feel good again.  
  
She refuses to include him on that list.  
  
+++++  
  
shifting, sliding under him  
  
good  
  
so good  
  
a good she hasn't felt since -  
  
she wants to whisper  
  
"good"  
  
in a dozen languages she doesn't know how to speak  
  
but he's not supposed to hear such things from her  
  
so she speaks with pants and groans  
  
that can mean whatever he wants them to  
  
+++++  
  
He feels stir-crazy, so he goes out for a walk. She's nowhere to be found, and this surprises him. He has seen her most nights since that one, but he holds back and waits for her to make the first move.  
  
Six nights ago she looked at him and he stopped short, his mouth open as if waiting for hers. He thought this is it, she's going to acknowledge me now. Then she turned her back to him.  
  
He walks through the cemetery gates and past houses, until he reaches the city center. It's still early, and some stores haven't yet closed. He passes by The Magic Box, its lights still on. For a short moment, he's tempted to go inside, but he doesn't. Not his place anymore, and he doesn't think he can even look at some of its possible inhabitants without wanting to slap them, hard.  
  
Her included. He loves her, but really. He's sick of loving her back turned to him.  
  
For not the first time, he thinks he should just leave Sunnydale. Find someplace new to haunt, someone new to love. But a century of loving Drusilla taught him that we can't choose our paramours.  
  
So he's stuck with Buffy until he wises up and gets over her, or until she does something to cause him not to love her anymore. Hardly a chance of that happening, but he lives in hope.  
  
Nineteen days ago, he was happy. Happier than he'd ever imagined he could be. He'd been able to change, and he thought she could too. That she could see him as someone different than the monster in her head.  
  
He forgot about that unforgiving, mean side of her.  
  
+++++  
  
his hand on her back, again  
  
--i hate you, she murmurs  
  
she sounds sincere  
  
press down harder  
  
harder  
  
smother the life out of her  
  
he thinks  
  
-- it would be so easy  
  
the chip would never notice and i'd be free  
  
rolling over, her back arched like a cat  
  
her belly silver/gold in the half-light of the boarded up windows  
  
--do you love me?  
  
--you know i do  
  
her grin is feral, full of life  
  
--then touch me again  
  
she's not even a vampire but she has him in thrall  
  
and he forgets about her death  
  
+++++  
  
She sits on the front porch and tells herself she's not waiting for him. She tells herself she doesn't need his touch again, doesn't need him to make her feel good again.  
  
She almost has herself convinced.  
  
Dawn pokes her head out the front door and says, "Giles called."  
  
Buffy's head whips around. "He did?"  
  
"Yeah, he said he's sorry for not calling on Christmas day, but something came up. I asked if he wanted to talk to you, but he said he had to go."  
  
"Thanks," Buffy mutters, then she turns away and hopes Dawn will get the hint to leave her alone.  
  
She feels very alone.  
  
She pretends she's not still waiting for Spike to appear.  
  
+++++  
  
this is not what i want  
  
she's almost convinced  
  
then he looks up at her  
  
her legs framing his heart-shaped face  
  
and he smiles  
  
not an evil smile  
  
just a smile  
  
happiness, maybe, like he's in heaven  
  
and she should know.  
  
this is not what i want  
  
but it's what i need  
  
this  
  
him  
  
+++++  
  
As he walks, he works himself into a furor. He's angry with her for being such a bitch, for not coming to him to thank him for taking care of Dawn, or for making her feel damned good for a change.  
  
He's angry with himself for letting her fill him until there was nothing left of him anymore, for letting down his guard just enough to fall in love with her.  
  
He can't kill her, he knows that now. He'd sooner stake himself in the most painful possible way than to kill her, and that's the worst of it.  
  
As he walks, auto-piloted, toward her house, he tries to remember all the little ways he used to torture her. He's never used her friends to get to her before, but there's a first time for everything. Besides, by now he's nearly as furious with them as he is with her. Really, Anya and Xander haven't done anything to piss him off, but it's all the same. Scapegoats are just another type of target.  
  
Then he flashes back to that moment in his crypt, after Glory had beaten the living hell out of him. He role-reverses and thinks that if anything happened to Buffy or her friends, it would destroy Dawn. He can hate Buffy because she won't let him love her and it tears him up inside, but he can't do anything to hurt Dawn. Not after she trusted him enough to hold his hand as the doctor set her bone.  
  
Maybe just some psychological warfare. Dawn would never have to know.  
  
+++++  
  
-- i love you  
  
he murmurs when she's not listening  
  
but she is  
  
she rolls over, pretends to sleep  
  
he stares at her  
  
so this is heaven?  
  
he understands why she feels the way she does  
  
he thinks: catch-22, it is  
  
she can only have heaven in death  
  
he can only have heaven when she's alive  
  
surrounding him  
  
touching him  
  
making him feel alive too  
  
and she pretends this isn't heaven too  
  
this feeling of being truly alive again  
  
of basking in the love of another person  
  
even if you don't love him back  
  
right?  
  
right.  
  
+++++  
  
He turns the corner onto Revello and bites his lip as he passes the last few houses before hers. He feels larger than life, conspicuous, as if the whole world is watching him, waiting for him to be kicked out again.  
  
She looks up and tracks his movement as he approaches the house. He came, didn't he? She tries to be upset, to remember she's not supposed to want him here, no matter how good it feels.  
  
She feels small and vulnerable. Buffy isn't supposed to feel this way -- she's stronger than anyone in a hundred-mile radius -- but something about him makes her feel helpless. It never used to be like that, back when she could hit him without guilt pangs.  
  
Back before she knew how it felt to have him inside her, his hands framing her face and whispering sweets in her ear.  
  
He reaches the front of her house. He stands at the end of the walkway, waiting for her to give him a sign. Though he felt larger than life as he approached, now he feels small and helpless. Ashamed that the need for acknowledgement from a woman has reduced the big bad to the sniveling idiot he was a hundred-odd years ago.  
  
She stares down at her hands, rubbing them raw. She wishes she had some of the lotion Anya gave her for Christmas, anything to serve as a buffer for her raw skin.  
  
She can't want this. She can't.  
  
She scoots over just a few inches, a silent invitation for him to come sit next to her.  
  
His entire body tingles, as if he still had a heart pumping blood.  
  
Each footfall thuds through his body as he walks up to the front porch and sits next to her.  
  
She smells like cinnamon and pine. Her body is scorching-hot as he places his hand on her shoulder.  
  
"Did you have a good Christmas?" he mutters.  
  
+++++  
  
--i don't love you, you know  
  
--i know  
  
traces the hollow of her back  
  
he grins into her hair  
  
--but you will.  
  
+++++  
  
END (1/1)  
  
Feedback would be wonderful! wisteria-at-smyrnacable-dot-net 


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